Sacrificial offerings

No, no, no, despite the title of the post I'm not writing about Hermes. I am back in Erlangen, and back on track with my mission statement: today I cycled to Bamberg and drank a shandy. Bamberg is about 40 km from Erlangen, but I took the scenic route, stopping for lunch in the small franconian village of Teuchatz. Gasthof Neuner (that's the name of the pub in Teuchatz) is good for three reasons; it has cheap beer, a very limited menu (a choice of one of three lumps of meat, each served with salad and dumpling), and is on top of a hill. This means that you get 5 extra minutes to digest your dumpling before you have to go up the next hill.

A short while after lunch I passed a sign pointing to the "Jungfernhoehle", which translates as the "virgins' cave". Of course I cycled straight past it, suspecting that seeing the cave would involve a long walk, that the cave would be very much like any other, and that the virgins had probably taken the afternoon off.

In all these points I was probably right, but the cave has a most peculiar history. According to a local legend three virgins were beheaded in front of the cave and each October would go for a headless moonlit ride. Then in 1951 some members of the Engert family, living in nearby Tiefenellern, decided to dig out the cave in a search for treasure. They were eventually stopped by some local amateur geologists, and the digging, which had found only bits of bone, stone and pottery, was turned over to some proper archaeologists. After quite a bit of digging, they had quite a lot of bones, including 40 skulls of young girls each with a hole in the side. They also had an extra large cooking pot. Putting two and two together, the experts declared the cave to be a site of ritual sacrifice and cannibalism, dating back 4000-5000 years. The cross below (borrowed from wikipedia) is a memorial to the victims.



Is it a coincidence that the story of the beheaded virgins rose around a cave where ritual sacrifices took place? Many people, including Victor Harth (see link below) thinks that it isn't, and that the legends were passed down through the generations for several millennia.

Links:
Victor Harth describes the story, in german.

Two geologists from Erlangen mention the story in their article about something else. Also in german.

A Time article from 1953, which you have to pay for. I did pay for it, so if you really want to read it just [DELETED BY ENDOFPHIL LEGAL TEAM].